rough-hewn fragments of memory and dreams

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This evening I want to do something grand. I want this evening to be special. I want to remember it. I don’t want it to be just another mundane Sunday night. I suppose that it probably will fall into the mundane, but oh how I wish for something more.

I want to go out for a walk like I used to do, after dark, when the fireflies light up the fields and the trees that lean over my one lane country road. I want to once again feel free. I want to stop feeling like like my life has stopped or like my entire body is on pause. I want to feel alive again.

I read somewhere once that the cage isn’t locked. If not, why does it feel locked? When I rattle the bars, the iron door doesn’t creak open. Am I really the one holding it locked tight?

I know I can be somebody. I know I am somebody. I just don’t know who that somebody is. I feel like a stranger’s living my life while I wait inside me for the time when I get to live. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Surely I’m not alone.

All I know is that there’s passion in me somewhere. It’s just that it’s been trapped. I’ve been afraid of the consequences of letting it out. I have tried to pour myself into the socially acceptable roles of daughter, sister, wife. The thing is that those roles are not enough. It is not enough for me to identify only with who I am to other people. What about who I am to me? What about my own identity simply for the sake of identity? What about my creativity, my dreams, the wildflowers and weeds that grow like crazy in my mixed up mind?

I want to go through my mind and pick a bouquet of all of these shoots and sprays of zaniness. I want to place them where I can see them, where they are prominent, place them where I see them first thing upon waking, not hide them in a corner of my closet and pretend that, ever since I became someone’s spouse, I stopped dreaming and gave up myself. I don’t want to give up on any more of me than I’ve already given up on. I’m tired of pretending that who I am and what I want don’t matter, that all that matters is making my husband happy. I’m tired of settling for less than my authentic self.

I can do this. I can open up again. I can be me again. I can be free again. I can speak my mind without fear again. Not just one day. Not just someday. Today. I’m starting today.

Yes, this is an anonymous blog. Yes, I am not sharing this with my husband. Yes, I am also not sharing it with my friends and family, but I am taking the first step to becoming strong and free and independent. I’m getting these words out, even if it has to be in a cloak and dagger way.